"State sends robocalls on overpayment of unemployment benefits; 63,000 people suspected of wrongly getting jobless benefits as far back as 1985 are targeted" by Megan Woolhouse | Globe Staff August 17, 2014
The automated message sounds like one of those dreaded spam calls: “You are required to pay this debt,” the voice says. “Failure to repay your overpayment may affect your ability to collect future unemployment insurance benefits as well as impact your state and/or federal income tax refunds.”
But it’s no scam.
State officials, using automated phone messages or “robocalls” that began in July, are targeting 63,000 people, about 1,000 per day, who they say received undeserved unemployment benefits as far back as 1985. The average amount of the debts the state is seeking to reclaim is about $2,500 a person, but some cases involve amounts as little as $100, according to internal e-mails obtained by the Globe.
Meanwhile, Hollywood gets tax subsidies, all the big profit-making multinationals making bucks gets a cut, the well-connected cutting edge pharmaceuticals and environmental firms get their loot, debt service is top priority for the state house, services are cut or "level funded," and the unemployment website goes down -- but they are going to track down those $100 from THIRTY YEARS AGO!!
With interest and penalty, please kindly make out check to Mass. D.O.R. for $1,300 please. Thank you.
Ignoring the calls, no matter the amount owed, carries serious consequences; a person could ultimately lose the ability to collect unemployment benefits in the future or have their future tax refunds garnished.
(Blog editor is a$toni$hed at this liberal, one-petty government).
The state, which for years has mailed letters to some of those targeted, has made some 17,000 calls and collected more than $400,000 in overpayments since late July, officials said, and could recover at least $157 million through the program. The money will go into the state unemployment insurance trust fund to pay future benefits.
While the Massachusetts initiative is part of a broader national crackdown by many states to recoup unemployment benefits that were erroneously or fraudulently obtained in recent years, few, if any states, are pursuing collections as aggressively as the Commonwealth, which is looking all the way back to 1985.
“Wow.”
What about those who were said to receive benefits and owe but never did, as was reported earlier? Pay up, don't care if it is $hit computer software?
*****************
This is the first time Massachusetts has deployed robocalling to collect overpayments, said Ann C. Dufresne, spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. She said the robocalls are the latest, and a more aggressive effort, to recoup the money after years of sending letters to many of those targeted.
To collect on an old overpayment, the state has a number of legal hurdles it must clear.
State officials said there is no statute of limitations for pursuing collection of an overpayment. However, the state has one year to establish that an overpayment was made to a person.
For example, it must have proof by 1999 that a 1998 overpayment that it wants to collect occurred. State officials said there is also a six-year limit on pursuing a civil action, such as filing a lawsuit.
Dufresne said those who think they have been targeted for overpayments in error can appeal to state hearing officers.
Pffft!
But Shannon Liss-Riordan, an employment rights lawyer in Boston, said it’s inherently unfair to go back so far into a person’s past to collect a debt. It would be difficult for people to defend themselves because few keep records for that long.
“It’s not realistic to expect people are going to be able to challenge it,” Liss-Riordan said. “Who’s going to be able to pull out evidence from 30 years ago? You’re only supposed to hold onto your tax returns for something like seven years.”
Then, uh, it's pay up, right?
Massachusetts could not provide data about the number of overpayments in each year, including how many date beyond 20 years.
Officials said more than 20 percent of the overpayments, totaling $29 million, occurred within the last year, after the state’s launch of a new and problem-plagued online computer system to manage unemployment claims. Those problems delayed benefits for thousands of unemployed workers.
Additionally, the new system erroneously mailed bills to some workers claiming they owed the state for past overpayments; some people even had unemployment benefits cut as a result of the mistakes. One Dracut man received a bill for $45,000, which state officials later acknowledged to him was a mistake.
I'm $tarting to think it is all on purpo$e. I gue$$ the only good software is the bank ATMs.
Dufresne said the majority of the billing errors related to the computer system were resolved before the latest robocall collection effort was launched.
Uh-huh.
She said about 40 percent of the 63,000 people receiving messages were overpaid as a result of alleged fraud.
In most cases, they might not have reported partial earnings during a period when they were collecting full unemployment benefits. Massachusetts allows people to work part-time and still collect benefits, but the unemployment checks are adjusted to reflect those earnings.
Some states have stepped up collection activities after the enactment of a 2011 federal law that allowed garnishment of federal tax refunds to recover overpayments of unemployment benefits. The same law removed a 10-year limit on collections.
And yet the debate is all about inversions and wealth inequality when nothing will be done there. It will recede until the 2016 election cycle. Had filibuster-proof Democrats and all we got was a lousy corporate health plan, but somehow that law made it through and was signed.
Feds just as bankrupt as the state, folks.
Oregon recently began seeking to recover overpayments dating back 10 years from 16,000 claimants. Colorado collected $20 million between 2012 and 2013 of more than $100 million the state says it is owed. Illinois recently attempted to recoup $2 million in overpayments to scores of prisoners.
Research by the National Employment Law Project, however, shows that workers are more likely to lose out on unemployment benefits that are underpaid or improperly denied than they are to benefit from overpayments because of fraud.
Hey, that's the AmeriKan $y$tem, and always has been when compared with allies.
In 2010, about $2.2 billion in benefits was erroneously reduced or denied by states; overpayment because of fraud totaled about $1.6 billion.
--more--"
"State’s robocalls over debts widely denounced; Advocates say tactics to get unemployment overpayments are aggressive, often unfair" by Megan Woolhouse | Globe Staff August 20, 2014
That's a $urpri$e (said with utmo$t $arca$m).
Consumer advocates, lawyers, and a candidate for attorney general called for the state to stop using robocalls to collect overpayments of unemployment benefits from tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents, describing the state’s efforts as unfair and harsh....
And they could affect a lot of illegal immigrants.
Maura Healey, a candidate for attorney general, said such tactics are disturbingly aggressive and that if elected, she would shut down the collection program “on day one.”
See: Attorney general race splits Democrats’ hearts, minds
I think I will be voting Republican in the general.
“I am deeply concerned that the state is using anonymous robocalls to collect alleged debts going back to 1985. It’s a solution right out of 1984,” said Healey, a former civil rights attorney and consumer protection advocate in the office of Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is running for governor. “Those of us who’ve worked to stop predatory debt collectors have fought similar scare tactics for years and it’s troubling if the same abusive approaches are given a government stamp of approval.”
$ee the $tate for what it is?
The Globe reported the program Sunday after obtaining copies of internal e-mails from the state Department of Unemployment Assistance. The automated message, according to the e-mail, says: “You are required to pay this debt. Failure to repay your overpayment may affect your ability to collect future unemployment insurance benefits as well as impact your state and or federal income tax refunds.”
State officials said they undertook the robocalls because they had unsuccessfully tried to recover the money by sending letters....
State labor department officials have defended the collection effort....
Margaret Monsell, an employment lawyer who testified before the committee, said problems with the benefits system persist. Many claimants have told her that they received letters saying they owe the state repayment, only to be contradicted by subsequent letters saying they do not.
Just give 'em your cash, will ya'?
“We hope that the agency regards fixing those problems as a higher priority than pursuing this harsh and often untimely remedy,” said Monsell, who works at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, a nonprofit poverty law center in Boston.
Michael J. Widmer, president of Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, who also sits on the Department of Unemployment Assistance advisory board, only learned about the robocall effort after it became public this week.
He considers the robocall tactic fair if the majority of the 63,000 people have been notified that they owe the repayment, which state officials said was the case.
“If a robocall were made out of the blue and there was no previous history [of contact with a person who owes money], that’s one thing,” Widmer said. “But if this follows a process over many years and efforts to collect, that’s totally appropriate.”
Andrew Kisseloff, a Norwood employment lawyer who worked in the state Department of Unemployment Assistance for a decade, disagreed. He said that the state’s records could be faulty, targeting people who do not owe the state money.
“They already send letters, so I don’t understand how robocalling, which I think is reprehensible whenever it’s done, helps,” “Kisseloff said. “It’s just my opinion, but robocalling someone like that is inconsistent with being a public service agency.”
Peter Benjamin, litigation director for Community Legal Aid, which offers free legal services in Western and Central Massachusetts, also supports shutting down the collections effort.
Benjamin said claimants often receive overpayments through no fault of their own, and under state law, they have the right to request a waiver forgiving repayment.
Yeah, it's the STATE'S MI$TAKE, but YOU MUST PAY FOR IT!
State officials said 229 people have applied for waivers since the program began, but Benjamin criticized the robocalls for not specifically mentioning the waiver option.
“I’m certainly concerned,” Benjamin said. “I think the state ought to hold itself to a little higher standard than a collection agency.”
